The Trade Union Bill and Social Media

The British government is planning to introduce legislation (“Trade Union Bill”) that reforms the planning and conduct of industrial actions. A consultation document associated with the Trade Union Bill suggests that unions have to provide advance notice to authorities it they employ social media in industrial actions.

5th ICTs and Society Conference 2015: The Internet and Social Media at a Crossroads: Capitalism or Commonism? Perspectives for Critical Political Economy and Critical Theory.

Given that the information society and the study of information face a world of crisis today and are at a crossroads, also the future of the Internet and social media are in question. The 5th ICTs and Society Conference therefore wants to focus on the questions: What are the main challenges that the Internet and social media are facing in capitalism today? What potentials for an alternative, commonist Internet are there? What are existing hindrances for such an Internet? What is the relationship of power structures, protest movements, societal developments, struggles, radical reforms, etc. to the Internet? How can critical political economy and critical theory best study the Internet and social media today?

Social Media and the Islamic State’s Killing of James Foley: Why It Is Time the West Shifts Public Attention towards the Kurdish Internet-Sphere

Social Media and the Islamic State’s Killing of James Foley

Western media, including the Guardian and the BBC, hardly report on the fact that Kurds use social media for documenting and reporting on their fight against IS.

The best support that the Western public can give to the Kurds is to stop focusing so much attention on IS and its use of social media, to stop unwinnable right-wing attempts to censor and control the Internet, and to start amplifying the voices and visibility of the Kurdish social media sphere by reporting about how Kurds and their supporters use the Internet for political purposes, and by re-tweeting and re-posting their contributions.

Christian Fuchs and Sebastian Sevignani: New article about theorizing digital labour on social media

Fuchs, Christian and Sebastian Sevignani. 2013. What Is digital labour? What Is digital work? What’s their difference? And why do these questions matter for understanding social media?

Social Media, Politics and the State

Announcement of a forthcoming collected volume (2014): Social Media, Politics and the State: Protests, Revolutions, Riots, Crime and Policing in the Age of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Edited by Daniel Trottier and Christian Fuchs New York: Routledge http://www.routledge.com This book is the essential guide for understanding how state power and politics are contested and exercised [...]

Collected volume “Critique, Social Media & the Information Society” (ed. Christian Fuchs and Marisol Sandoval)

Critique, Social Media & the Information Society
Edited by Christian Fuchs and Marisol Sandoval
Routledge
http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415841856/
The critical guide to social media and the information society in turbulent times!

New MA in Social Media, University of Westminster

The University of Westminster has announced a new MA programme in Social Media.
The programme’s task is that students acquire the skills for becoming critical and reflective social media experts that can work as social media researchers or social media professionals.

Why Social Media Research Matters for Occupy

Do social media really with necessity result in more democracy and a better society? What is the And if such states of society are achieved, are they then the result of technology or of the struggles of humans who take risks in activism? What is the relationship of technology and society? What is the relationship between the opportunities and risks of “social media“? The Internet researcher Manuel Castells has in his recently published book “Networks of outrage and hope: social movements in the Internet age“ voiced a view that is quite similar to the one by Shirky.

4th ICTs and Society-Conference 2012 (Uppsala, May 2nd-4th, 2012): Critique, Democracy, and Philosophy in 21st Century Information Society. Towards Critical Theories of Social Media.

Critique, Democracy, and Philosophy in 21st Century Information Society.
Towards Critical Theories of Social Media.
The Fourth ICTs and Society-Conference.
Uppsala University. May 2nd-4th, 2012.
A unique event for networking, presentation of critical ideas, critical engagement, and featuring leading critical scholars in the area of Critical Internet Studies and Critical Studies of Media & Society.

Invited talk about “Internet Prosumption in Contemporary Capitalism” at the ESA 2011 Conference

On September 9th, I have given an invited semi-plenary talk about “Internet Prosumption in Contemporary Capitalism” at the 10th Conference of the European Sociological Association (topic: “Social Relations in Turbulent Times”) that took place at the University of Geneva in Switzerland.